Against

YouView essentially provides a hard drive Freeview HD recorder with the ability to watch catchup TV on your TV. So you can scroll back in the EPG and watch programming from BBC iPlayer, 4OD, ITV Player and Demand Five from any time over the last seven days (providing the programming is available on that service – sports are notable in that they are often missing).

If it's an evaluation of YouView's own merits you're after, then check out our main YouView review. that's the standard YouView service that you can choose to buy from a retailer for around the £170 mark subscription free.

The alternative – that we're looking at here – is that you can opt to sign up for a contract and get the box free - a similar but cheaper alternative to Sky. You can do this through BT or TalkTalk and get extra on demand content as a result.

So you should read the standard YouView review in tandem with this one, as we're predominantly looking at the extra services and top-up channels BT provides here.

BT has now joined YouView in eschewing the default YouView box that we really like– check out our Humax DTR-T1000 review and the newer Humax DTR-T1010 review. The new BT box is almost exactly the same in function although is much smaller and comes with a brand new remote.

BT's new box comes in a compact package

Disappointingly, the new box doesn't improve on the 500GB capacity of the earlier boxes (indeed, a 1TB version of the DTR-T1010 is also available).

Getting YouView from BT means a 12 month subscription, but you can get the BT service from £5 per month for the Essential pack or pay £7 per month.

You will, however, need to have a BT line and BT broadband connection to use the service (in addition to a standard roof-top aerial to receive the Freeview channels). Aside from the set up fee though, you're probably paying most of that cost already if you're with BT.

The £5 package requires BT Broadband that's £11 a month for the first three months, then £17 per month - on top of your normal BT line rental (£16).

The BT content is all too easy to avoid

For the latter package you also need to be signed up to BT Infinity which costs £15 a month for the first three months, then £23 per month. Again that's on top of your normal BT line rental (£16). This includes access to several premium channels including Discovery and National Geographic as well as BT Sport (though HD costs £3 a month extra).

Those who live in a Freeview area can receive up to 70 TV and radio channels. If you've got BT Infinity then you can receive over 50 Entertainment and sport channels via their broadband connection.

New vs old: the new box on top of the old DTR-T1000

Other BT packages are available (such as film for £5 a month more) or you can go on demand with any package with BT Player (basically what BT Vision used to be). This is an option available on the main YouView menu and is available from £3.50 per film.

The new BT YouView box

As with standard YouView there is access to all Freeview channels and on demand players plus Milkshake, Dave and Sky's Now TV should you have a subscription to that. You can also add Sky Sports or movies to your pack, though the costs are high.

Also new is this control panel atop the box

It's clear that BT is hoping you'll buy a decent tranche of on-demand content or subscribe to some extra channels to make its subsidy on the box worthwhile. But as we'll explain in a moment, it isn't hard to end up paying extra - though you do so completely on your own terms, there are no hidden costs.

BT certainly can't be relying on pure on demand content, primarily because it's rather easy to avoid the online content on the YouView interface.

You can browse SkyMovies content within BT Player

BT has an entry on the main menu alongside access to the Guide and your recordings, but you'll rarely use this main top-level menu because you're more likely to use the Guide button to access programming and make recordings from there.

Films cost £3.50 from BT Player

However, in a change from the old YouView remote, the new version is BT branded and has a direct access button to the BT Player.

The quality of content is OK – there are some decent films, but it unless you decide to pay for some content you'll soon find yourself wanting more. Indeed, I found myself just going back to the Guide to see what was on offer there.

Updates to YouView are regular

We were using this new box in tandem with a new BT Home Hub 5 and BT Infinity working at around 64Mbps. The connectivity problems we experienced with the old YouView box and the Home Hub 3 now seem to be a thing of the past.

On demand content works quickly - providing your BT broadband is

However, because of the increased demands of IPTV, particularly BT Sport, BT now bundles a 10 metre Ethernet cable with this box. It's suggested that your YouView box should be directly cabled, though we had no issues with a pair of modern Powerline adapters such as the Devolo dLAN 650 Triple+ Starter Kit.

BT says this box is far faster than its predecessor, and it is a little zippier to move around the menu. My old box has hung a few times recently and reacted badly with various slowdowns after one update. But it isn't noticeably faster in one crucial area - the start up.

Basically these boxes have two modes - eco (high) and full pelt (low). If you have it on eco, using less power, it takes a while to spin up when you switch it on from standby. We still found ourselves waiting around 20-30 seconds. Now this is better than the minute or two the old box took, but it still is far from satisfactory considering the box is on standby.

Sadly the box is still relatively slow to start

This is a problem with all YouView boxes, however, so it isn't a fault of the BT box specifically.